According to the FAOSTAT data 2017, the largest orange producing country is Brazil, while Italy is at the 12th position. In the European Union, Italy is the 2nd larger producer, after Spain (FAOSTAT, 2018; L’Informatore Agrario, 2017). The Italian production (mainly due to cultivation in Sicily) is greatly consumed fresh (1,017,400 tonnes), while the amount destined to the processing industry is about 213,600 tonnes (17.4 %) (ISTAT, 2017).
Even if only a small part of Italian oranges is used in the processing industry, this represents a growing business sector on a global scale (especially for the production of frozen/concentrated orange juice) that was the subject of media attention for related working conditions, the massive use of pesticides and the environmental impact that comes from production and distribution worldwide (Dusch Silva et al, 2013; Wildenberg and Dusch Silva, 2015).
In this context, the goal of this study is to identify the environmental hotspots of orange processing in a firm operating in Sicily using a life cycle approach. The study presents a detailed production inventory data in order to identify the potential environmental impacts of the different processes involved in orange processing activities. The company used as case study represents an example of enterprise where the circular economy approach is applied; indeed, it has different production lines for juices, peels and essences production, allowing a complete use of the whole orange, including waste valorisation for energy recovery through an anaerobic digestion process.
The analysis is carried out through the application of the Life Cycle Assessment method. The functional unit is 1 tonne of oranges. System boundaries are defined following a gate-to-gate approach and includes the orange processing and the related juices, peels and essences production and the transport and distribution process. The results show that transport is the main contributor to the global warming potential of orange processing. Detailed results on single processes allow the identification of the environmental hotspots to be used for the identification of environmental improvements at company level. The circularity efforts of the company are described and evaluated in comparison with non-circular approaches.
Keywords: LCA, orange processing, circular economy, environmental assessment
References
FAOSTAT (2018) http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data (downloaded on the 02/01/2018
ISTAT (2017) Istituto nazionale di statistica. http://agri.istat.it/ (accessed on the 06/01/2018)
L’InformatoreAgrario (2017) “Agrumi, in Europa a due velocità” L’InformatoreAgrario 1/2017, pag.26
Wildenberg M., Dusch Silva S. D. (2015) “EXPRIMIDOS: Lo que hay detrás del negocio de zumo de naranja” MEDIENINHABERIN, EIGENTÜMERIN UND VERLEGERIN: GLOBAL 2000, Neustiftgasse, Wien http://www.supplychainge.org/fileadmin/reporters/es_files/Exprimidos_completo.pdf downloaded on the 02/01/2018
Dusch Silva S., Wesenick K., Braunger I., Hamann A. (2013) “Focus: Orange juice” Christliche Initiative Romero, Breul, Münster http://www.ci-romero.de/ leadmin/media/informieren-themen/studien/CIR_Orange_juice_study_low_sp.pdf downloaded on the 02/01/2018
5e. Sustainable consumption and consumers
